Qiological Podcast

The acupuncture and East Asian profession is facing a number of critical challenges as long-established schools close, new federal guidelines on graduate education loans will dramatically change how much students can borrow, and fewer students consider a career as an acupuncturist.
How to wayfind through these troubled times? That is the question explored in this series with practitioners, researchers, and educators in the field of East Asian medicine.
In this conversation with Danielle Reghi we follow the arc of her career from acquiring and dealing with upwards of 200K in debt, to building a multi-location practice and learning how business acumen is as necessary as clinical skills.
She is the president of the Oregon Association of Acupuncturists. She played a key role in drafting the Oregon Acupuncture Workforce Sustainability Proposal, which considers the effect of the new RISE and AHEAD metrics from the federal government and how those affect the amount graduate students may borrow. Additionally this proposal looks at other educational options and alternative pathways that can lead to licensure in the State of Oregon.
Any discussion of the future requires a clear eyed view of the present. You’ll get that in this conversation with Danielle, along with some innovative thinking about what’s up around the bend in the road..

Medicine is never only about treatment. It also carries culture, identity, and memory. Sometimes preserving a medicine is a way of preserving a people.
In this episode we visit with James Flowers to explore a potent moment in the history of Korean medicine and how Hanbang became part of Korea’s cultural resistance during the Japanese colonization. Not through politics or violence, but through preserving ways of healing, thinking, and living.
We discuss how medical ideas moved between Korea, China, and Japan, the role of Yangsheng in everyday life, and how Korean medicine resisted separating mind from body in the way modern systems often do.
This conversation also touches on the deeper question of how medicine lives within culture—not only through practitioners and institutions, but through families, daily habits, stories, and collective memory.
Listen into this conversation that weaves together history, medicine, identity, and the enduring cultural force of East Asian healing traditions.

Often what brings someone into our office looks straightforward at first—a concussion, dizziness, headache, or a sense that something is not quite right. But what begins as the search to fix a symptom often reveals something deeper—a nervous system that has lost its bearings, sensory maps that no longer line up, and a body quietly adapting around signals it can no longer fully trust.
Ayla Wolf and Clayton Shiu both work at the intersection of functional neurology and East Asian medicine. Through clinical observation, modern diagnostic tools, and hands-on palpation, they’ve developed ways of seeing patterns that often sit beneath symptoms most people wouldn’t connect to the brain.
Listen into this conversation as we explore how concussion can masquerade as digestive issues, tinnitus, anxiety, or vestibular dysfunction. And why the neck, eyes, inner ear, and autonomic nervous system all can be part of the problem. We’ll explore how acupuncture can help restore orientation, balance, and sensory accuracy. And what becomes possible when ancient medicine intersects with a modern understanding of neuroplasticity.

We often think of allergies as simple reactions, but some conditions reveal a far deeper conversation between the immune system, environment, and daily life—one that evolves with every exposure.
In this conversation with Rebecca Chrestman, we explore Alpha-Gal syndrome through both modern understanding and Chinese medicine, looking at how patterns like damp heat and spleen imbalance help make sense of complex, multi-system symptoms. We discuss the realities of treatment—not quick fixes, but gradual shifts in reactivity, lifestyle, and resilience.
We also touch on the emotional and practical impact of living with a condition that reshapes how you eat, live, and move through the world.
Listen in for a conversation that brings together clinical insight, traditional thinking, and the lived experience of navigating a truly modern illness.

What makes a system feel trustworthy—results, lineage, or the way it brings you into the resonance of what’s happening?
Philip Suger didn’t start with Saam acupuncture. He was in Beijing in 2010, following a thread that led him to Wang Ju-Yi and channel palpation—hands on the body, feeling where things change and where they resolve. Later, back in the States, he found himself working with patients who improved but those changes were not lasting. That got him began circling back to a method he’d once dismissed: four needles, arranged through a set of relationships rather than point functions. It didn’t make a lot of sense. But people were reporting results.
After some study with Toby Daly he got more curious, and that sent him searching for information in Chinese.
Michael Brown, has a keen interest in tracking down old texts and translating them for the world English speaking acupuncturists. Together, they have spent the past few years working on a translation of a book that traces the history of Saam, some of the luminary practitioners along the way, and the way these pre-modern doctors used the Four-Needles.
There’s been more than a little development of the Saam method since that legendary monk had his cultivated insights into medicine. One thing for sure, four needles with the right diagnosis, it can make a big difference for our patients.